by Chris Seaton
When she rounded the blind of a hedge, she found Agent Wyatt trying to restrain a petite black woman who was fighting back with every fiber of her being. He had his hand over her mouth and an arm around her stomach, straining to maintain control of her and the situation.
The sight of Bernice didn't help. “You really don't know how to listen, do you?” he growled.
Bernice ignored him and approached the frightened woman. “We're not here to hurt you. We only want information.”
The woman widened her eyes with incoherent panic.
“She's not listening,” Agent Wyatt pointed out, irritated.
Bernice put her hand on the woman's arm and looked into her eyes. Her voice was low and slow. “It's okay. This man is a police officer. He thought you were a criminal. He wants to let you go, but you need to calm down. Can you do that for me?” Bernice looked into her eyes with concern and sympathy. “Just calm down, so we can talk to you.”
The panic slowly dissipated to pure apprehension. She relaxed her struggles. Bernice smiled indulgently at her before stating firmly, “Agent Wyatt, remove your hand from her mouth and apologize.”
He gaped at her in astonishment and anger, silently showing his lack of willingness to obey her orders. She simply glared back and turned her head in a way that asked him if he had a better idea. He scowled at her as an acknowledgment that he did not, so he slowly removed the pressure of his hand over the woman's mouth, wary of the fact that she could start screaming.
She did not scream. She simply stayed silent, her eyes hooded in blatant hostility.
Agent Wyatt acquiesced, carefully stepping back and mumbling, “I am very regretful of my actions, Ma'am. I thought you were somebody else.”
The woman turned and retorted in her thick, Bahamian-accented English, “Well, God help the poor soul that you were looking for if this is how you were going to treat them.”
“I check on the house and water her plants every week,” Gracia proudly told them as she turned the key to unlock the condo's door. “I tend all the Americans on this block and have never had a complaint. Most of my clients wouldn't even know me on sight because I do my job and disappear like a ghost.” She opened the door, hit the lights and let them into Jessica's home.
It was immaculately clean, sparse, and forgettable. It would have easily passed for a model unit in its lack of personal touches. To Bernice it was quite obvious that Jessica didn't have a sentimental bone in her body, if the condo was any indication about her psyche.
“If you aren't familiar with Ms. Breck, how do you get paid?” Agent Wyatt questioned.
“My services are included in the condo association fee,” she said, crossing her arms and watching him like a hawk. Once Agent Wyatt had shown her his credentials, she was slightly more cooperative, but it was obvious the trust was tenuous at best.
Gracia was less focused on Bernice. Bernice took advantage of that fact and wandered around, looking at tabletops and on walls for signs of what Jessica was like. When that turned up nothing, she began to pull open drawers and cupboard doors. She peeked in the nondescript bathroom of beige on beige. All of the fixtures were spotless, and the medicine cabinet was conspicuously empty.
She came back into the main living area and made her way over to the small kitchen.
“How long have you been working for the owner?” Agent Wyatt inquired.
“Since she purchased the condo,” Gracia obediently answered.
Bernice looked in the fridge and the cupboards around it. Other than cleaning supplies, there was nothing in the kitchen at all. She bent over and opened the unused oven door. “Gracia, do you clean the condos too?”
“Yes, and tend pets, take care of laundry, and stock groceries.” She listed off her services with practiced ability.
Bernice looked up, smiling at her. “And you did these things for Ms. Breck?”
Gracia shook her head. “No, only plants here. That's it.” She gestured to various tropical specimens, discretely placed in corners on plant stands. Orchids and Canna Lilies in various stages of bloom held their own against the ordinary background of wicker and teak.
Agent Wyatt surveyed the room discouraged. “Well, thank you, Ma'am, for your time and cooperation.” He held his hand out toward the door.
“MmHmm,” was Gracia's unimpressed acceptance of his gratitude. She waited for them to leave first then locked them all out of the unit. She briskly marched past them and went out of the exit door at the end of the hallway.
Bernice's sigh echoed Agent Wyatt's disappointment. “Nothin',” she concluded.
“You got that right,” he agreed.
“How does anyone live that way? No pictures, no books, no food, she didn't even have a bottle of aspirin in the bathroom.”
“And no Jessica,” he conceded, releasing a small growl. “Well, this was a total waste of time.”
They trudged abjectly out into the parking lot.
“How long before we catch our ride back to Nickel Point?” Bernice questioned as she watched her feet.
“Couple hours,” Agent Wyatt mumbled.
He looked up just in time to watch the large chunk of concrete being propelled toward his temple.
Bernice screamed bloody murder. Agent Wyatt crumpled unconscious and bleeding onto the asphalt.
A shell-shocked looking black man stood over him, palming the bloody weapon and staring at Bernice with complete helplessness. “Where's Jessica?” His voice cracked in his obvious panic. “What have you done with her?”
That was all the time he had to make his case before Bernice threw her body against him and sent them both down.
His bare back scraped painfully on the hard surface as they landed, and Bernice wasted no time in squirming her way on top of him and beating at the offending arm, shaking it and causing the man to lose his grip on the rock. She rolled it out of his reach before he threw her off.
She saw the raised fist just soon enough to fall onto her back and kick in his direction as hard as she could, almost barking in primal fear. She felt her shoe make contact with something solid and hard. His body hit the pavement before Bernice was able to see what happened.
She sat up quickly on the back of her hands. In the deserted parking lot, she found herself amongst two unresponsive bodies.
“What in the hell did you do this time?” That was Darlene's idea of a greeting when she was woken from her bed in the wee hours of the morning to accept long distance phone charges. She sat in her voluminous nightgown at the kitchen table, gripping the phone and frowning.
“I rendered a man unconscious,” was Bernice's short sarcastic answer.
Darlene gasped in anger. “Did you hurt Agent Wyatt?” She heard an exasperated exhalation of breath on the other end of the line and jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Oh my God, you did hurt him! Bernice, how could you?”
“Darlene, it wasn't me. We were jumped. I knocked out the other guy.”
“You know, I watched on Newsline the other night about how the Bahamas are a haven for drug smugglers and illegal immigrants. I bet one of them tried to rob you for money or something.” Darlene's overactive imagination went wild with speculation. “Did he try to kidnap you? Maybe, he was going to sell you into slavery. Boy, what a waste that would be. I can barely get you to do what you're told here.”
“OH MY GOD!” Bernice spat out impatiently. “Do you think you could actually let me tell you what's going on for seven dollars a minute?”
Darlene pouted at the kitchen table in silence. “All right then,” she responded, hurt.
There was more audible breathing on the other end of the line. “The guy who jumped us is a citizen of the Bahamas according to his wallet. Agent Wyatt was bleeding pretty hard from his head, so he was air lifted to Miami. I am still here in Nassau. I am being held for questioning, and they won't let me leave until this guy I knocked out wakes up.”
Darlene's features hardened with her concern. “So you're at the police station?” she
asked carefully.
“I'm at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau. There's a very nice police woman standing next to me, and we will be hanging out together until this guy comes to.”
“Aren't you worried about Agent Wyatt?” Darlene asked.
There was silence on the other end. “More than you know. That's about it for now. Did you get my note?”
Darlene grimaced at the neglected sheet on the table. “Don't worry about things here. We'll be fine. Just take care of yourself and let me know if you need a lawyer.”
“I'll be fine,” Bernice argued. “Take care.”
“Yah, you too, Dear.” Darlene hung up the phone. She heard the heavy thud of footsteps coming down the stairs and watched Cameron enter the kitchen. Without preamble he came up behind her and kissed her on the head before proceeding to rub her shoulders and ask, “Everything all right?”
Darlene embraced his hands with her own. “I hope so,” Darlene replied with no confidence whatsoever.
Bernice paced in front of the small, white patient room. She glanced time and again at the unconscious Nathan Joseph and simply asked herself, “Why?”
Why would a catamaran sailor accost them in the middle of the night and bludgeon Agent Wyatt like that? Did he think they had taken Jessica? Did Jessica give him the impression that she was in trouble? Did she warn him that people were coming?
The only way to explain her knowledge of their arrival would be an accomplice back home. Agent Wyatt was right. Jessica might have been the mastermind, but someone else was involved too. Bernice wondered who would be on her hook.
It could be anyone from her past at the spa. She had a number of lucrative clients with good connections. What would it take to bend their moral compass? A million dollars, perhaps?
Maybe it was more personal than that. Maybe it was Chet or even Bernardo. For all she knew, good ol' Roger could've had a go at her. How would she know?
As disturbing as it was to speculate that her own lover could be a killer, it was better than imagining Agent Wyatt bleeding to death on a gurney somewhere. She tried calling Miami several times with all the weapons of persuasion in her arsenal from sweet talking to angry/empty threats to even impersonating a state official.
She was always told the same thing: immediate family members only were allowed personal medical information, period. “Assholes,” she quietly cursed to herself as she paced.
The police woman assigned to babysit her looked up from her magazine and frowned.
“Not you,” Bernice explained herself, attempting civility. “I'm just worried about my friend.”
The police woman continued to page through the magazine and inquired flatly, “Was he that cop?”
“Yes,” she sighed in her helplessness.
“No worries then,” the police woman remarked. “Cops have hard heads.”
Bernice couldn't help but form a small smile.
The foggy haze turned bright white and was accompanied by a horrible throbbing in his temple. He blindly raised his arm to investigate and felt searing pain on the top of his hand. He set it down and tried the other arm. It was free and painless.
Blinking several times to clear his vision, he turned his head only to regret the decision as a wave of nausea threatened to overtake him. He ceased his movements in defeat and decided to wait things out.
Agent Wyatt could hear a constant beeping somewhere behind him and footsteps on a hard surface a short distance away from him. The air conditioning chilling his skin told him he was indoors. It was an easy for him to deduce that he was in a hospital.
He made a growling sound in his throat to test his vocal cords. He found them functional. “Hello,” he attempted to communicate hoarsely, “is anybody there?”
“Que?” The response was from somewhere in the room. It was from a man speaking what he hoped was Spanish. He searched his brain for his brief experience with that language and was encouraged to see shapes starting to form with his blinking.
“Donde esta aqui?” Agent Wyatt asked tentatively. He doubted he had the tense right, but hoped it was close enough.
“Miami General,” the disembodied Spanish-speaking voice replied.
Agent Wyatt was trying to remember where he was last. Was it Miami? He could make out the end of the hospital bed now. The throbbing in his head was excruciating, but he felt like he had to figure things out.
And just when the concentration was becoming unbearable, his short term memory forced back recent events with startling clarity. The parking lot, the rock, Bernice...
Agent Wyatt gasped harshly, the realization of his injuries and the possible consequences involved making themselves evident. It caused his blood pressure to increase exponentially. The beeping behind him sped up to a more rapid rhythm.
“Estás bien?” his roommate asked, concerned. “Usted necesita un médico?”
“Where's Bernice?” His brain was circling around the question with piercing pain, but he recognized the “medico” word and ran with it. “Si, si, medico, por favor,” Agent Wyatt requested, “pronto.”
He heard a new beep coming from the vicinity of his Spanish friend. He guessed it was the call button for the nurse. He began to blink more rapidly. He was able to make out the pleats in the curtain surrounding his bed.
Padded footsteps walked past him to the other occupant. “Qué necesita?” another man asked.
“Se despertó,” was the unknown response.
Then he watched his blurry curtain get whipped aside and a short brown man move into his line of vision. The man shined a light pen quickly back and forth into his eyes. Agent Wyatt squinted in the process.
“Mr. Wyatt, do you know where you are?”
“If I understood that other guy, I'm at Miami General with a head injury from having a rock bashed into my noggin. That sound about right?”
He could just make out the white toothy grin of the nurse in the otherwise indiscernible features of his face.
“I'm guessing we can rule out any obvious brain damage,” the nurse exclaimed cheerfully. He carefully turned Agent Wyatt's head a small degree from side to side. “Any pain or nausea?” he asked in rote.
“Yeah,” Agent Wyatt answered him testily, not appreciating the seasickness the head turning was causing. “Where's my friend, Bernice?”
The nurse frowned in confusion. “You were flown in from Nassau early this morning, alone. No one told me of any friend.” He checked the IV in Agent Wyatt's hand and looked up at the red bag on the metal hook above his head. “I can get you some meds for the pain, if you'd like.”
“What I'd like is to find out what happened to the friend who was with me when I was hit.” The authoritative cop was back, despite any lack of capacity to exert said authority. “I need to speak to the Bahamian authorities and find out if she's all right.”
The nurse chuckled, not taking much credence in his request. “You are in no condition to use a phone, Mr. Wyatt-”
“Agent Wyatt,” he corrected through clenched teeth. “I was investigating a person of interest in the Bahamas for a murder, and my friend was assisting me.”
“Oh,” the nurse acknowledged. “Was she an agent too? Because we've had several calls about you from a woman claiming to be an Agent Determyer from the Wisconsin department of something or other. Is that her?”
Agent Wyatt blinked through his confusion for a few moments while he processed that information. He smiled slowly. The beeping behind him slowed in response.
“Yep,” he answered, letting his eyes fall shut. “That's her all right.”
“You are free to go, Ms. Hordstrom,” the police women informed her, hanging up her cell phone. “But I must accompany you to the airport and see that you are boarded and safely out of the country.”
“That's just fine by me,” Bernice agreed, scooping up her duffel bag. “Just get me to Miami.”
The police woman faced her with trepidation, waiting for a fight. “I'm afraid that's not possible. Your f
light's been changed.”
“What?”
“Your flight from Nassau International is direct to Chicago where you are to be transferred to Minneapolis.”
Bernice's stance was erect and hostile. Her voice was low and calm. “That's unacceptable. I need to go to Miami and make sure Agent Wyatt is all right,” she claimed with conviction.
The police woman looked at the floor for a moment then raised her eyes to Bernice in abject sympathy. “Ms. Hordstrom, Agent Wyatt was the one that requested the flight change.”
Bernice stood stunned, swaying slightly as if struck by an invisible slap. She absorbed the sting of the statement and began to pace, remarking sarcastically, “Well, apparently he's feeling better.” She stopped and questioned the officer, “What about Mr. Joseph in there? We still don't know his connection with the investigation.”
“My superiors are having his residence searched as we speak. Agent Wyatt has requested any evidence be sent to him in Madison. We have agreed to cooperate fully with him.” She assessed Bernice with authority, even as the sentiment remained in her eyes. “He requested that we see you home safely.”
Chapter 13
“He doesn't want to see me.” That was the gist of the statement that circled around in Bernice's head. It befuddled any logic she was attempting to apply to her present situation with emotional disappointment. Despite all they had shared, even with the passion he declared for her in their hotel room, it wasn't enough to constitute a further relationship with her on any level. That was it, end of story.
It was a painful conclusion to accept, but it was a practical one. After all, he lived several hours away. They had completely different lives. And for all intents and purposes, she was not a free agent. There was still Roger.
She had a soft spot for Roger. He seemed to be wanting more of her in his life. She could almost see herself taking up the role as his significant other, maybe even as a step-mom to Brooke. And while their passion might be waning, they understood each other. They were friends.
